Sonic LAB: Behringer X32 Review Part 2

US Your questions answered 14/08/12

MP4	13:40 mins

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First up thanks for the great responses to the first part of this video, I’ve tried to answer most points, either in the comments or in this video. But there were a couple of things I just couldn't test - namely the AES50 and P16 connectivity and routing - as I don't have any of that hardware here. If I do get hold of some before they come to take this desk away (a sad day indeed) I will post another video. Additionally, some questions came in after I'd finished this, again, I may be able to address those in a separate video, time allowing.

Aside from your questions, I wanted to demonstrate the sound by running a mic though a channel - and so I used our trusty sE Electronics Voodoo VR-1 Ribbon which is demanding of any mic preamp, and ran that through the EQ, compression and gate as well as some of the effects.

Then the rest of the video was down to answering the points raised in the comments to our previous video.

Bottom line is that I am pretty blown away by the features and design of this desk, Behringer clearly wanted to do something special here to boost their reputation and I think they have done so. There are some fair criticisms - a few minor operational niggles, no easy way to flatten the EQ, no quick way to pair channels or copy and paste between them, but the only real major gripe is in the clocking area - aside from the limitation that it only goes to 48kHz, you just cannot easily clock the X32 to an external source. Apart from the S16 AES50 digital snake, if you wanted to run the desk from any other existing audio hardware, there just isn't presently a way. Behringer have told me that there are plans to address this with perhaps an AES50 peripheral that will take wordclock, or other expansion cards, but nothing concrete that they will commit to any dates for.

In a live scenario, this doesn't present much of a problem, and I feel that this is perhaps where the desk will really shine at first. But it does also have a place in the studio, the included FireWire/USB audio interface board enables connection to the computer. Indeed the control surface implementation also helps considerably.

But simply, you won’t find these features on desks costing several times more than this - especially the audio networking aspect, and the inclusion of 32 mic preamps gives you plenty of inputs. We’ll see what sort of other interface cards are coming on stream to enhance that.

Frankly, I’m very impressed - it's a lot of desk for the money, whether it's live or for the studio.

Price

£2099, $2899, €2699 - MAP

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